A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book “means” thereafter, perforce, — both grammatically and actually, — whatever meaning this or that reader gets out of it.

 

-James Branch Cabell, novelist, essayist, critic (14 Apr 1879-1958)

 

So works of art (books) are severed from the author, right, I understand that part, and that they become very much an “eye of the beholder” type of a phenomenon, but I;m not altogether convinced that the same applies to a child and its parents. While I’ve watched generations of children and young adults move toward a spiritual and intellectual, as well as economic “parturition”, I’ve been keenly aware of the continued influence of parents, partly through what seem like genetically determined behaviours (parent-teacher conferences often make this abundantly clear), but there are also clear influences governed more by social interactions in the family and, eventually in the circle of friends, a marriage, a working group and society in general. Interesting thought. A part of the book taking on a life of its own has often come up in literature classes where the instructor has the magic “right” interpretation and generally deems all else to be specious, thereby losing much respect and credibility among the offending and offended students: this is a realm where anyone can posit anything without the slightest need for documentation or justification. It could get lively in here…

From Facebook, a take on kids being kids, apparently from Tommy Chong:

… and a musical coda: